BY COLIN MIXSON | Upper West Side public school teacher Shakira Provasoli was treated to a once-in-a-lifetime field trip to the White House last week, where the she was honored with the Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators in recognition of a groundbreaking curriculum she developed to support her school’s greenhouse learning center.
But the self-effacing elementary school instructor humbly argued that she’s not the hero, and that the amazing hydroponic growing space atop West 93rd Street’s P.S. 333 deserves all the credit.
“It’s definitely the children’s favorite place to go, it’s not about me,” said Provasoli, a Manhattan resident. “It’s like having a field trip, but they get to go every week.”
All modesty aside, the teacher’s lack of pretension belies the invaluable curriculum she’s spent the past five years developing to leverage the impressive hothouse — which features pest-eating ladybugs, fertilizer-producing tilapia, and numerous high-tech hydroponic systems — to infuse her young students with an impressive competence in, and love of, environmental science.
“I want them to love science,” Provasoli said. “I want them to feel confident about their understanding of science, and I want them to believe that they have the power to make a difference in the world.”
Provasoli isn’t afraid to use the entrancing space to teach deadly serious science, using plants grown in the greenhouse to demonstrate the effects of climate change, subjecting them to drought, storms, hot flashes, and other ugly consequences of our misuse of the earth.
But her classes are designed to inspire hope, not despair, and Provasoli instructs students that they can take control of their world and work to make it better by understanding the causes and effects of global warming.
“It’s a scary topic,” she said, “but when you have the tools to change it and lessen the effects, they really can make a difference.”
The greenhouse, with all its flashy gizmos and critters, goes a long way all on its own –– separate from any lesson Provasoli provides –– in engendering a love of science and the natural world. In fact, there are times when the greenhouse steers the lesson more than Provasoli would like.
“You can’t imagine how difficult it is if a shipment of lady bugs arrived and, God forbid, I want to teach about something else,” she said. “Sometimes I have to laugh and understand I’m not as exciting as a ladybug.”
The greenhouse at P.S. 333 was among the first at any public school in the city, although the non-profit-funded growing spaces have since expanded to other schools throughout New York, where teachers and students continue to benefit from the curriculum that Provasoli pioneered.
“I’m pretty sure that it’s used as the basis for their teaching,” the White House-honored instructor said.
